WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Abood

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◈ Friedrich's Battlefield

Chapter 94: Stalling for Time (2)

“CHARGE!”

The command came from Friedrich, who had been lying in wait with the knights hidden on the enemy’s left flank. At once, he and eleven Royal Army knights burst out from behind trees and undergrowth.

The enemy hadn’t anticipated an ambush. Perhaps they were too focused on advancing, their guard lowered. The jaegers on the outer edge of the formation stared in shock as knights appeared right in front of them. Some didn’t even have time to draw their weapons before being cut down.

“Enemy attack! They're hitting the flanks!”

One soldier managed to shout a warning to his comrades, only for it to be his final act. A moment later, Yurika’s blade tore through his throat, and he collapsed.

Across the road, on the right flank, chaos erupted as well. Chester and his group of eleven Imperial knights launched a simultaneous ambush from the opposite forest.

Scrambling in confusion, the enemy tried to draw their machetes and form up, but they were still far from ready. Pushed back toward the road by heavily armored knights with full momentum behind them, they struggled to hold ground.

Their reaction was slower than expected. As tough as the northern jaegers were, it seemed even they couldn’t escape the fatigue of such a prolonged advance.

By contrast, the Royal Army knights fought with an intensity that bordered on desperation.

Gregor unleashed the full extent of his swordsmanship, regarded as the best in the regiment, cutting down one disoriented enemy after another. His technique far outmatched the jaegers, whose individual combat skills varied despite their endurance.

Oliver, on the other hand, fought in perfect coordination with the men on either side of him, pressing the enemy back with a solid, disciplined advance that left no openings.

Gunther, wielding his massive frame and brute strength to full effect, kept the enemy at bay with ease. One soldier who tried to charge through his storm-like swings failed to slip past, and was cleaved clean in half at the torso, his upper body flung backward in a spray of entrails.

Yurika moved faster than even the lightly equipped enemy soldiers, striking with the precision and intent of a naked blade. She ducked low and slashed at one soldier’s ankle, slicing through the joint. 

As he collapsed forward, she drove her sword into his face, bursting his eye. The man screamed and rolled across the ground, no longer a threat. She left him where he lay and turned immediately to the next.

Friedrich, positioned at the far left of the formation, fought carefully to avoid separating from Yurika. He didn’t overcommit to killing blows. His focus was on defense, buying time. While the enemy's attention was on him, Yurika, having just felled her opponent, slipped in from behind and decapitated the man Friedrich had been engaging.

Against the furious assault of the Royal Army knights, enemy attacks rarely found their mark. Clad in heavy metal armor, the knights deflected machete strikes with their helms or absorbed the blows with chestplates and gauntlets. Even Yurika, being lightly armored for a knight, was nearly untouchable; their strikes simply never landed.

The enemy ranks broke formation as they got caught off-guard by the ambush. Those positioned deeper within couldn’t join the fight, and the advantage of superior numbers was lost. Despite being just twenty-two between both flanks, the knights pinned the enemy down, trapping them in the narrow road between the forests.

・・・・・・

“Stay calm! They’re few in number! Overwhelm them with numbers and take them down one by one!”

At the center of his disoriented men, Ivar bellowed orders.

But giving orders was easier than executing them. The enemy wore full metal armor. And as expected of knights, they were highly trained. 

They were used to fighting in formation and moved in tight coordination, never allowing themselves to become isolated. Their unified movements made it difficult to pick them off individually, as Ivar demanded.

Some of the jaegers were equipped with crossbows or bows, but in the chaos of an ambush, loading a crossbow took time. Arrows loosed through the gaps between their allies were mostly ineffective, either intercepted by enemy shields or deflected by armor.

Had the jaegers been fresh, they would have fought better. But fatigue, combined with the suddenness of the ambush, had thrown them off. They were struggling to reorganize.

Even so, they still outnumbered the enemy nearly five to one. They couldn’t be held down forever.

“It’s loaded! Clear the line of fire!”

Acht, standing near Ivar, raised his crossbow and shouted. He took aim and fired.

One of the Imperial knights attacking from the right flank took the bolt square in the chest and went down.

The crossbows loaned from the royal family of Arelia had enough power to pierce even metal armor, depending on range and angle. 

Over ten of them were in their possession. Few could wield them as skillfully as Acht, but even so, their attacks were enough to disrupt the coordination of the enemy knights.

Meanwhile, the jaegers regrouping within the formation began to push back more effectively than at the start of the ambush. Their combat became more functional and controlled.

No matter how fierce the enemy’s momentum or how strong their armor, they were still vastly outnumbered. If they could crush them here, all that remained would be to resume the pursuit of their true targets.

With that thought in mind, Ivar turned his eyes forward, and saw over twenty riderless warhorses charging up the road in a frenzy, headed straight for them.

“…Damn it.”

The curse slipped from Ivar’s lips instinctively. Some of the other jaegers noticed the incoming stampede as well.

“Horses incoming! Move!”

“Get out of the way! Into the forest—now!”

Shouts rang out, but many were still locked in combat and hadn’t noticed the chaos unfolding on the road. Worse yet, escape into the forests was cut off as enemy knights stood in their way on both sides.

The jaegers, forced onto the road between the woods by the ambush, now faced the oncoming mass of panicked warhorses, tons of charging muscle and hooves bearing down like a tidal wave.

・・・・・・

As the ambush halted the enemy's advance, several knights brought out the horses they had hidden in the forest. Striking the animals on the flanks with the flat of their blades, they agitated them, driving them into a frenzy and sending them charging up the road, straight into the enemy forces pinned there.

This was the strategy Friedrich had devised.

A direct cavalry charge alone wouldn’t have worked. The enemy, light and mobile, could simply scatter into the woods. And if the charge failed to wipe them out in a single strike, they might regroup and strike from behind. Or worse, break off and pursue Melinda and Claire.

So instead, they had chosen to dismount, hit the enemy from both flanks, and force the scattered troops back onto the road. Then, unleash the mass and momentum of the horses directly into the center.

The plan had worked, for the most part. A few of the horses failed to run as expected, and some veered off into the forest. But over a dozen stampeded along the clear path straight into the enemy ranks.

A stampede of horses, each weighing over five hundred kilograms, crashing into a crowd of unmounted men, there was no walking away from that. Screams erupted. Final cries echoed. The enemy formation fell into chaos.

Even the enemy soldiers directly in front of Friedrich’s line, who had been locked in combat, turned in shock at the commotion erupting behind them.

Friedrich didn’t waste the opening.

“Now! Fall back!”

With only twenty-two of them, it was obvious they couldn’t wipe out nearly a hundred enemies. At Friedrich’s command, the Royal Army knights immediately disengaged and broke into a run. 

On the opposite flank, Chester and the Imperial knights did the same, descending the hill. A short distance ahead of the confused enemy, just before the forest line ended, the two groups regrouped, keeping a safe distance of several dozen meters from the enemy formation.

Friedrich briefly locked eyes with Chester. They both gave a small nod, silently confirming each other’s safety.

Then the three knights who had driven the horses into the enemy lines rejoined them. The group quickly formed two ranks across the road, heavily armored knights and shield bearers in front, lighter-equipped knights in the rear.

At this point, they had suffered five losses. Three Imperial knights and two Royal Army knights.

While hurrying to prepare the next phase of his plan from the rear, Friedrich kept an eye on the enemy with a sideways glance.

A riderless stampede couldn’t last forever. While it had plunged the enemy into chaos, the physical damage it caused was limited. Even after losses from the melee and the charge, more than sixty enemy soldiers appeared to remain combat-ready.

And they were recovering faster than expected.

The remnants of the enemy force, having regrouped and regained momentum, let out a battle cry and surged forward. In a head-on fight, they still held a decisive numerical advantage. Their confidence was clear, they already saw this as their victory.

And then, about ten of the enemy jaegers leading the charge all stumbled and went down at once.

The reason was simple: a rope stretched across the road.

One end had been tied to a tree by the roadside; the other end had been strung through the forest on the opposite side. 

Until Friedrich’s group had passed through, the rope had left loose on the ground, covered with leaves and dust to keep it hidden. Right before the enemy arrived, one of the knights pulled it with their full weight.

The enemy soldiers, charging forward with their eyes fixed on the knights lined up ahead of them, failed to notice the rope stretched tightly at knee height. Running downhill with full momentum, they were tripped in an almost comically undignified fall.

The soldiers just behind them, suddenly blocked by the collapse of their comrades, were forced to stop in a panic. The ones even farther back slammed to a halt as well, bringing the entire charge to a sudden stop.

One especially unlucky soldier among those who fell had his own machete driven into his torso in the tumble and died instantly. The others had only struck their faces or chests against the ground, and were now scrambling to retrieve their dropped weapons and get back on their feet.

In that moment of confusion, the knight who had pulled the rope, Yarg, burst out from the trees and sprinted back toward the main formation where his comrades stood ready.

“You bastard!”

“What kind of coward sets traps like that?!”

“Are you kidding me?!”

As the enemy soldiers, enraged at falling for such a ridiculously simple trap, hurled knives, stones from the ground, and even arrows and crossbow bolts his way, Yarg ran for his life. 

The front row of the formation stepped aside to open a gap, and he dove through, sliding into position at the rear.

“Damn it! I’m never doing that again!”

“Well done. Glad you made it back in one piece.”

Friedrich greeted Yarg’s grumbling with a faint smirk, then turned back toward the enemy. With nothing more than a single rope borrowed from Kelra Village and Yarg’s risky run, they had managed to halt the enemy at close range.

“Throw them!”

At Friedrich’s command, the knights responded immediately. The front line dropped to one knee, lowering their stance. From the rear, several knights hurled the rough sacks they had been carrying straight at the enemy formation.

Footnotes: 

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